The Haigerloch Project

“Günther,” he said into the mouthpiece, his voice oily. “Hier Helmut.” He paused conspiratorially. “Hör mal—listen. I just thought I'd let you know. Whatever is wrong with Semaphore Seventeen down by the watering tower — don't look for it to be finished for a long time.”

He listened.

“What am I talking about? Mensch—I'm talking about that foreign bum you sent down to fix it. The lazy stiff is laying down on the job. He has even tried to cover his criminal idling. Hidden his damned bicycle in the rubbish. Didn't count on me and my binoculars, though!”

He listened again. He frowned.

“Do as you damned well please, Günther,” he said acridly. “I could not care less. If you say there is no one there — then there is no one there. That must be the bastard I am watching!”

He slammed the receiver down.

He looked through the binoculars. The man was still behind the shack. Or he had gone back in. To snooze, no doubt…

Angrily he banged the binoculars down on his desk.

* * *

Günther, the Raupe, bit his lip. What was all that about a foreign worker loafing on the job? At Semaphore 17? He remembered no trouble with that signal. Or the watering tower. He'd sent nobody to fix anything. He frowned. He pulled a sheaf of work orders from a rusty nail and leafed through them. Nothing.

Could the General Yardmaster himself have dispatched someone? Not likely. Still—if he had, it might not be a bad idea to show him that he, Günther, was alert to the fact. Make him look good….

* * *

Yardmaster Schindler was irritated. That little ass-kisser Günther had come sniveling to him with some cock-and-bull story about a foreign worker loafing on the job. Good God! Didn't they all? He'd sent the idiot packing, of course. He had more important things to worry about. That Gestapo officer who'd just showed up in Hechingen had insisted that security throughout the yard be doubled. Impossible. He could not play police and run the yard at the same time. He deeply resented the Gestapo meddling in yard affairs. He glanced at an official order lying on his desk, arrived only that morning. “Immediate reports are to be made of anything unusual,” it read. Over the signature “Harbicht.”

He suddenly smiled.

So the Herr Standartenführer Harbicht wanted strict security. Immediate notification of anything out of the ordinary. Schon gut! — Very well! Perhaps he would like to take care of the mysterious, malingering foreign worker and his hidden bicycle at Semaphore 17!

He turned to his assistant.

“Get me the Gestapo,” he said.

* * *

Harbicht slammed the receiver down.

“Rauner!” he bellowed as he hurriedly shrugged into his uniform jacket. “Rauner!”

The door burst open and the startled Obersturmführer came rushing in. Harbicht at once barked at him.

“I want two trucks. Personnel carriers. Twenty men. With Schmeissers! Sofort! — At once!” He strapped on his belt, began to check his Walther automatic. “You take one of them. I'll take the other. And get that — peasant Eichler. Bring him along.”

“Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer. Where—”

“The railroad yard,” Harbicht snapped. “The hump switching yard. I'll brief you. Get that detail together! Los!”

“Jawohl!”

Rauner left at a run.

By God! A foreigner acting furtively! A hidden bicycle! By God! His case could be breaking even sooner than he thought.

Harbicht hurried from the office….

* * *

There he was. Going back into the shack. What the hell was he up to? Goddamned foreign bastard. Likely as not a Frenchman. Ought to be strung up for slowing up important work for the Reich. Zander could taste the gall of frustration in the back of his mouth. There was nothing he could do about it…

He was just about to put his binoculars down when he stiffened in surprise.

Careening down the service road came a military truck. It skidded to a gravel-spurting stop at the watering tower, and a bunch of SS troops armed with Schmeisser machine pistols leaped to the ground, quickly fanning out to cover the tower and the signal.

Hardly had he recovered from his astonishment when he heard a second truck screeching to a halt on the service road below, directly in front of his tower station. He leaned out to look down. He could hear the shouted orders as armed SS troops tumbled from the truck and cautiously started to approach the old storage sheds.

He was thunderstruck.

Günther?

All that to capture a malingering foreign worker?

He glued the binoculars to his eyes. This he did not want to miss….

He trained his sight on the shack — just in time to see the loafer duck out of the door and sprint for the cluster of damaged rolling stock on the sidings. He was carrying his burlap sack.

He leaned out the window.

“Hello!” he shouted. “Hello!” But the SS soldiers were already too far away. Only one man stood at the truck below. Looked to be a civilian. “Hello!” he called. “At the truck! He's over there! At the cars! Over there!..”

* * *